Nash Stream Forest Citizens Advisory Committee Meeting November 17 2022 скачать в хорошем качестве

Nash Stream Forest Citizens Advisory Committee Meeting November 17 2022

An excerpt from a news report in the Cal-Rec, 11/28/2022 Concerns Raised About OHRVs In Nash Stream State Forest Robert Blechl LANCASTER — Two local residents and a member of the Nash Stream Forest Citizens Advisory Committee have raised concerns about environmental impacts to parts of the Nash Stream State Forest from Off-Highway Recreational Vehicle use. During the committee’s meeting on Nov. 17 at the North County Resource Center in Lancaster — drawing a small turnout with four members of the public as well as representatives from the New Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands and the state Trails Bureau — committee member Jamie Sayen, of Stratford, said the state is in violation of RSA 215-A:42, the New Hampshire statute on OHRVs and trails on state land. “I raised this last year and have to raise it this year,” he said. “No studies have been done on impacts in 20 years. That strikes me as irresponsible as well as in violation of the law.” However, not all committee members or forest bureau representatives agreed that the use is illegal and said there are different interpretations of the law as well as different interpretations of what constitutes monitoring. They said the committee can deal with issue in the next revision of the forest management plan in 2027. The 39,000-acre Nash Stream Forest, the largest single-tract state-owned forest in New Hampshire that includes portions of the town of Stark, Stratford and Columbia, was created as a state forest in 1988. Long before that a timberland, it is today a multi-use forest, with most upper elevations left to revert to their natural state and some lower elevations under timber management and rotational harvesting. When it became a state forest, OHRVs were prohibited as a traditional recreational use under the management plan. In 2001, a legislative ATV study committee report agreed to allow the Bureau of Trails to develop a system of trails on public and private land, provided that state laws are enforced and new trails are created when the Trails Bureau can monitor impacts. Sayen, who cited a number of state documents and committee meeting minutes in a 2-page chronology spanning two decades, said those enforcement and monitoring conditions have not been met. Nine days before the study committee’s decision in 2001, New Hampshire Fish and Game admitted they were too understaffed to provide law enforcement, but the state opened Nash Stream Forest to OHRVs in full knowledge that it violated its own laws, he said. OHRV use is also in violation of the forest’s 1995 vision statement to protect the natural qualities and integrity of the land, which requires monitoring and enforcement, said Sayen. In 2002, the state opened up Westside Trail to OHRV use, followed by Kelsey Notch Trail in 2013. By 2007, according to the committee meeting minutes that January, vegetation cover had disappeared along Westside Trail and serious dust, erosion, and mud problems were apparent, he said. Responding to the proposal to open up Kelsey Notch Trail for use a few years later, Jim Oehler, of New Hampshire Fish and Game, wrote that OHRVs were not part of the original management plan, said Sayen. Other NHFG officials subsequently commented on erosion problems, as well as on noise impacts on wildlife, he said. In 2016, the Appalachian Mountain Club, The Nature Conservancy, and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, which guaranteed a $5.1 million loan toward the total $12.75 purchase of the watershed, argued the existing OHRV trails in Nash Stream Forest were in clear violation of the law. In 2020, the three groups (AMC and SPNHF hold conservation easements in the forest) submitted a legal opinion to that effect. Two years ago, the Bureau of Trails began counting machines through counters, said Clint Savage, supervisor of the bureau’s District 1, in a trails update at the Nov. 17 meeting. Counts show 12,293 machines on the Kelsey Notch North Trail in 2021 and 10,167 machines in 2022, he said. Other trails showed less OHRV use. Dave Govatski, chairman of the volunteer committee, asked Savage if there were any issues with erosion or enforcement. While no environmental issues were observed, there are things the bureau plans to address, but they aren’t significant, said Savage. “I believe both the easement and RSA 215 prohibit ATVs in Nash Stream,” said Sayen. “We have an illegal activity that is exacerbating the climate crisis and we need to stop this … What we have is something that got railroaded through without any planning and now we’ve inherited that.” https://www.caledonianrecord.com/news...